Marcion

The Christian theologian and leader Marcion (active mid-2nd century) promulgated views that were condemned as heterodoxy.

Marcion came from the Black Sea seaport town of Sinope on what is now the northern shore of Turkey. According to the writer Hippolytus, his father was the bishop of Sinope, so Marcion may well have been raised as a Christian. Once grown, Marcion entered the ministry and, toward the middle of the 2nd century, moved to Rome. There he gathered followers and in time began publically promulgating his theological views to the Roman Church at large. To his surprise, these views were not received sympathetically, and at the first known Roman synod, Marcion was excommunicated (144). Subsequently he became the founder of the rival Marcionite Church, which, in its ecclesiastical life, liturgy, and sacraments, paralleled the Christian Church. Marcion's rival church grew with considerable success, and Marcionite communities were found throughout the Mediterranean area well into the 4th century.

That the Marcionite Church, and more particularly, its heterodox doctrines, posed a threat to the early Christian Church is well attested to by the number of, as well as the vehemence of, treatises written against it in the 2nd and 3rd centuries. The longest and most important of these is by Tertullian. In spite of his severe opposition to Marcion's doctrinal views, that Tertullian could at the same time commend Marcion and his numerous followers for the purity and austerity of their moral life probably gives lie to the story, circulated later (4th century) by Epiphanius, that Marcion was forced to leave Sinope for Rome because he had been caught in an act of gross sexual immorality and excommunicated by his father.

The view for which Marcion was most soundly criticized was not only that he denied any connection between the Old and New Testaments but that he also rejected the Old Testament in its entirety. The God of the Old Testament, his studies led him to assert, was a God of Law and Judgment, completely different from the God of Love and Mercy, the Father of Jesus Christ, as revealed in the New Testament. The former, "Creator God," held mankind in a deceitful grasp from which the "Redeemer God" sought, through the mission of Jesus, to save him.

These views, expounded in Marcion's "Antitheses," led the Marcionite Church to develop its own canon of Scripture, a fact that played no small part in forcing the Christian Church to regularize its own canon. The Marcionite "Bible" consisted of major portions of the Pauline Epistles (especially where law and spirit were opposed) and an expurgated version of the Gospel of Luke in which the passion and death of Jesus appear as the vengeful work of the Old Testament God.

Further Reading

The best study of Marcion is in German. Of great value in English is Edwin Cyril Blackman, Marcion and His Influence (1948). □

Marcion , c.85-c.160, early Christian bishop, founder of the Marcionites, one of the first great Christian heresies to rival Catholic Christianity. He was born in Sinope. He taught in Asia Minor, then went (c.135) to Rome, where he perfected his theory. In 144 he was excommunicated from the church. He then formed a church of his own, which became widespread and powerful. Marcion taught that there were two gods, proclaiming that the stern, lawgiving, creator God of the Old Testament, and the good, merciful God of the New Testament were different. He considered the creator god the inferior of the two. Marcion also rejected the real incarnation of Christ, claiming that he was a manifestation of the Father. Though generally seen as one of the most important leaders of the somewhat loosely defined movement known as Gnosticism, he did not share some of the main premises of other Gnostic sects. He believed in salvation by faith rather than by gnosis; he rejected the Gnostic emanation theory; and he sought truth in his own truncated version of the New Testament, which included only 10 of the so-called Pauline Epistles and an edited version of St. Luke. He completely rejected the Old Testament. He explained in his Antitheses that since Jewish law was often opposed to St. Paul, all passages in the Bible that suggested the Jewish foundation of Christianity should be suppressed, even including such statements by St. Paul (see antinomianism ). Marcionism emphasized asceticism and influenced the developments of Manichaeism , by which it was later absorbed. Its effect on orthodox Christianity was to cause a canonical New Testament to be assembled and promulgated and the fulfillment of the Old Law in the New Law to be clearly enounced.

Marcion (d. c.160), heretic. A native of Sinope in Pontus, he made his way to Rome c.140, and attached himself to the local Church; he was excommunicated in 144. He organized his followers in compact communities over a large part of the Empire. By the end of the 3rd cent. most of them had been absorbed in Manichaeism.

Marcion's central thesis was that the Christian Gospel was wholly a Gospel of Love to the exclusion of Law. He consequently rejected the OT, holding that the Creator God depicted therein had nothing in common with the God of Love revealed by Jesus. This contrast of law and grace, he held, was fully understood only by St Paul, the Twelve Apostles and the Evangelists being largely blinded to the truth by remnants of Jewish influence. Hence for Marcion the only Canonical Scriptures were ten of the Epistles of St Paul (he either rejected or did not know the Pastorals) and an edited form of St Luke's Gospel. His Christology was Docetic. See also the following entry.

Marcion (85–160 CE) Influential heretic who came to Rome in 140 CE and established schismatic congregations. He held that the God of the OT was a God of Law and wrath, and not to be identified with the NT concept of the God of Love, revealed by Jesus. Paul was, he said, the apostle who understood this, and accordingly ten of his epistles, suitably edited, formed the major part of Marcion's canonical scriptures. Of the gospels, he accepted only an abbreviated version of Luke. Such radicalism may have encouraged Marcion's ‘orthodox’ opponents to consider which Christian writings were authoritative for the life and faith of the Church.

Marcion (d. c.160). Founder of a Christian movement which was a rival to Catholic Christianity in the 2nd and 3rd cents.: he was excommunicated in 144. By the end of the 3rd cent. most Marcionite communities had been absorbed by Manichaeism.

Notable in his teaching (e.g. in his (lost) Antitheses) was the absolute opposition between the Old Testament with its wicked God and the God of Love revealed by Jesus. He therefore rejected the Old Testament, and from the New Testament admitted to his canon only the letters of Paul and an edited version of the gospel of Luke.